By Asmau Ahmad
The Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, has lauded the interventions of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other organisations for their support to vulnerable persons in North-East Nigeria.
Edu made the commendation in an interview with newsmen after an interaction with some displaced women and survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) at the UNFPA One Stop Centre at Muna camp, Maiduguri, Borno State.
The minister, who inspected items being made by the survivors and other vulnerable women after they were provided with entrepreneurship training and other reproductive health support at the centre, said “UNFPA and other UN agencies are doing a lot in complementing government’s effort.
“UNFPA and other agencies are doing a great work to support government and we will be working to increase these responses at all levels.”
She said that she was in Borno state as part of her first engagement outside Abuja to assess what was going on and how Federal Government could support the state, particularly in humanitarian response and poverty alleviation.
She added that eight million people were affected by insurgency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, saying “we want to provide a more resilient system so we don’t have people that are permanently displaced or depend on handout for life.
“We want to to move them through livelihood, durable solution from being Internally Displaced Persons to believing in self-reliance.”
